


Helplessness Blues

by Natallee_Kae



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Fluff, Hospital, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Paranoia, Post Campaign, Post canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29079666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natallee_Kae/pseuds/Natallee_Kae
Summary: Then he remembered. In a blood curdling, heart stopping, muscle seizing moment, Logan knew exactly where he was.Exactly where Rorke had been taken so long ago.
Relationships: Keegan P. Russ/Logan Walker
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	Helplessness Blues

_“There are ancient tribes which are deep in the Amazon who perfected the art of torture over hundreds of years. The Federation embraced this heritage by enhancing it with more sophisticated methods. They kept Rorke in a hole for months by feeding him the food that are mixed with the poisons of the exotic plants. As they broke his body down, they went to work on his mind. When his mind broke, they went to work on his soul. They rebuilt what was left by twisting him to their purposes. The process was excruciating and exacting. Rorke was their Ghost now and was the perfect weapon to use against us.”_  
_Elias Walker_

_I’m nothing special_.

Logan was very sure of this. He wasn’t sure of anything else in his life, but he knew this. He used to not think this. He used to have some belief in his uniqueness. Those days were over. A new beginning was about to manifest. He could just feel it arriving any moment. The thought made his heart seize up.

Maybe it wouldn’t come before his head bled out. It was really pouring. _Someone should probably fix that_ , he decided, but it was a passing thought because he wasn’t very hopeful that anything would get any better if he survived the major head trauma.

He wasn’t anything special. He was incompetent. Clearly he gotten himself captured, and then he was going to be tortured. He wasn’t going to be able to resist the brainwashing. They were going to change him and he couldn’t pretend that if he tried hard enough he would be able to stop it. Every other victims thought they could resist, and all of them succumbed. Logan would too; he wasn’t anything special.

From the roof, came a steady drip of water. Logan had heard of a kind of torture where a person would be restrained and forced to lay down for hours while water would drip on their forehead at an irregular pace. The anticipation of the next droplet would supposedly drive the victim insane. Logan was almost sure the water he could feel on his foot was part of some torture plan. Luckily he realized that he could easily move his foot out of the way of the drip. That wasn’t what the torture was. It was most likely rainwater dripping through crack in the ceiling. The real agony was probably going to be much worse. He almost wished it _was_ the dripping water torture.

It was a very shaky room. It felt like an earthquake. Everything felt like it was moving slow. He couldn’t see sharp. Everything was a blur. He felt drowsy. He could almost fall asleep, but there was nothing to support his body. The room kept on shaking him and jostling him. His head hurt. He limbs felt heavy.

The small part of him that was awake screamed because he could recognise that he was in the back of a van and he was clearly brain damaged and the destination was very clear. But _god,_ his limbs did not want to obey any of his mind’s demands. He wasn’t focusing but he _needed_ to focus. He needed to focus. He needed to-

The rattling stopped and the roaring of the engine halted. That meant that he had arrived. That couldn’t be good. He knew where he was, or where they were going to take him.

The van opened at the back. A man approached. He wanted to resist but his body wouldn’t listen. He let himself receive a blow to the stomach and then a blow to the head which knocked him out.

And he woke up cold and wet, face down on a hard floor. Like bullets, water droplets were firing at him from above. It was like a shower with an insane amount of water pressure. So endless. Everywhere.

He felt like he had forgotten part of himself. His mind was trying to tell him something vital. Something about his location? Maybe if he turned over he would remember the information used to know by seeing his surroundings. He really couldn’t remember much and it was getting hard to recall his thoughts once he thought of them. They would fade away into the sound of the water.

He noticed his head hurt. It was so subtle that he had to focus on it to actually feel it.

The water was everywhere. It was getting uncomfortable and irritating. His back was not enjoying the sensation. He mustered up all the energy he could to flip onto his stomach. He rolled over on his right, remembering the hard way that his arm had been broken. Electricity of pain shot through his side and he fell back down to where he lay on his back. He hadn’t noticed, but his arm had been put into a shoddy cast. Maybe they had bandaged his head up too. It didn’t matter.

He rolled over on his other side this time.

It was not a blessing. He could now feel the pouring water beat down on his face and it was almost torturous. He wanted to open his eyes to see, but he was afraid the water would fill his eye sockets and blind him.

It was so cold.

His whole body was subject to the water and there was no hiding. Every atom of him wanted to escape the wetness. Every cell wanted to be dry. To have cover. But there was no cover. Only water. Only harsh, heavy water.

Then he remembered that he was captive. He couldn’t remember by who or why, but he was sure that earlier he was on the way to be tortured. Was this the torture? They were going to leave him under the waterfall until he died. That was his punishment for whatever he did, assuming this was a punishment and he had committed an atrocity of some kind. Why else would he be captive like this?

He really did want to see, though. It felt like a lot of effort, but he itched to know, to remind himself of anything.

So he opened his eyes. It wasn’t so bad. He could see.

Then he remembered. In a blood curling, heart stopping, muscle seizing moment, Logan knew exactly where he was.

Exactly where Rorke had been taken so long ago.

A dark pit in the Amazon where they would keep him for months. He remembered it all. All the Ghosts dreaded it. He had heard that many Ghosts would rather commit suicide than let themselves face the torture. Logan used to have pride. He used to think that he would never do such a cowardly thing. But Logan surrendered that dignity. He wasn’t any stronger than any other person. He was nothing special.

The rain was just the beginning. There surely would be much worse. If they left him there to die, he could take the cold and the starvation. But the Federation wasn’t going to stop at simple pain. They were going to pierce him like a needle under the skin at just the right places to antagonize him to insanity. They were going to run their fingers over his organs and squeeze them until he was on the cusp of death, and release. He would grasp at any sort of relief, and they would start again. Little by little they would break him.

But first, they would start with starvation. Logan wasn’t hungry; The idea of food sickened him. But he knew they would wait until he was begging for a morsel or grain. Until his skin clung to the bone and his ribs jutted out like an alien hatching from his chest. Until his body was only strong enough to pump blood and pulse his heart and open his jaw to drink the rainwater falling from the sky. And then they would toss him something, and he would smell the food. Like a rabid dog he would scramble to the source of the odour and would devour it. It would only be a bite and it would do nothing to satisfy his starvation. Then after horrid days of being deprived of sustenance, they would deliver another scrap which he would trust. He would trust it because he trusted the last serving and there was nothing left to do but trust. But that would be his mistake because the damage would already be done. The food would be tainted and it would poison him. But it wouldn’t kill him. No, it would tear him apart from the inside like a flurry of microscopic knives. And then they would let him suffer in there, a sick hound on a chain howling for care. A broken man. Then they would start talking to him. Telling him things. They would change him.

But Logan was going insane just from the isolation. For all the speculation of the intricate torture to come, he mostly dreaded the days, weeks, months of being alone.

Sometimes all he did was howl into the ether crazedly. His voice would escape into the wilderness with no effect on the world. Maybe a bird would hear it and laugh at the useless despair of the tiny creature going crazy below as it flew by. If a human being was there, listening, they probably had heard tens of men before him scream in despair in that very pit. The sky he lay under had heard the screams of hundreds of agonized victims.

Logan was enduring hundreds of years of development of a torture method so vile that it didn’t extinguish lives, it killed souls. He was subject number umpteen, and an unknown but large number of test subjects before him had rested on that very ground.

He was laying in graveyard. A tomb not for dead bodies, but for dead souls.

The pit was deadly boring. Boring wasn’t a strong enough term to describe the insanity he felt.

And there was stretches of no rain which were equally excruciation. With no rain, the humidity was pressurizing. There was nothing to do but lay on his back and stare up at the sun through the bars and the trees.

A fly crawled onto his arm. That was the most noticeable thing that had happened in a long stretch of time. He didn’t bat it away until he fearfully theorized that it was going to start eating him slowly. Maybe he was rotting and that fly was the first sign.

In the day, the flies came to investigate him. At night, the mosquitoes had their turn and feasted upon his blood created itchy and sore swelled skin. It wasn’t just mosquitoes. There were countless undetermined native insects that created painful bites. Logan was sure he was infected with some local disease after feeling feverish (thought the fever could have been caused by an infinite number of factors.)

The days were harsher than the night. The sun was a steady ray of heat and radiation that turned his skin a bright crimson. It hurt to move, but he wasn’t doing much movement. He always longed for rain again.

He screamed some more to entertain himself.

A bird landed on his cage. He looked at it. It was the most beautiful thing he had seen in a long time. It wasn’t a particular pretty bird but it was something alive. Something nonparasitic, not malicious that didn’t want to prey on him. This was just a lovely creature. It twittered and tilted its head curiously at him. Logan sung back in an unintelligible, unhuman cry. That was all he could muster; his voice had lost its lustre a long time ago. He wanted to talk to it. He wanted it to talk back. He wanted it to fly away, back to the Ghosts. Back to his friends. Tell them where he was. Tell them to find him. He wanted it to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. It chattered and hopped to another metal bar of the cage roof. It’s movement were so alive. Sporadic but guided, like a human being. It reminded him of his brother. Not him for any particular reason, but because he was the first human to pop into his mind and he didn’t have the energy to think it through.

He replied back with a high pitched groan. He had missed conversing with someone; lonely was too mild of a term.

The bird became bored, just like him. But unlike him, the bird had a sky to explore and no cage to stop it.

So he was alone again. There was nothing else to focus on but the pain, infection, heat and nausea. And pretend to not notice the pangs of hunger that ruptured within him. He wasn’t starving yet.

It was becoming obvious that Logan had a decision to make. He could reject the poisoned food they were eventually going to give him, or eat it. Not eating it would lead to a slow death. Eating it would lead to a slow painful, experience that would lead to him becoming a monster. It was death or monster, both with an equally agonizing path.

He was hungry, not starving. But eventually he would be starving. And he would have to starve. That was his goal; starve to death to prevent a worse fate.

His next screaming session was more of a mumble.

It was so hot, like sitting in an oven. He was covered in his own sweat, waste, and blood. It smelled horribly of blood, urine and infection. He felt terrible. He wanted it to end but he was provided with no such way to end it. He supposed he could try to block his nose and mouth with dirt to suffocate himself but he doubted that would work and would just create more suffering.

Fading in and out of consciousness was usual. It was hard to tell if he had fallen into small coma for several days, or only a minute had passed. There were no events to guide his perception of time apart from the changing of day to night and night to day and day to night….

Logan didn’t have the mental capacity to keep track. He just begged for his body to fall asleep again. When he was sleeping he couldn’t feel a thing and the time would pass.

Logan’s body was the only changing thing in that place. It was too pathetic to even call it a body, more like a shell. His skin was a fiery colour and blistering. He had made an effort to cover the burnt parts with his clothes, only exposing more skin to be burnt. He resorted to covering his skin in mud as a half hearted attempt to prevent more exposure. The mud seeped into his wounds, which undoubtedly were already infected. It was one or the other, and the burns hurt more. He didn’t bother removing the cast on his arm. It wasn’t worth it. He did in fact confirm that his head had been bandaged up. He deliberated taking them off to use them as body coverings, but decided that his head deserved the most protection. Especially since he probably still had an open head wound. _How was he even alive?_

Each moment, his body morphed into something diseased. It accumulated more bites, turned redder, and became thinner. He’d look up at his stick like arms and be sure that just a second ago he still had fat on them.

The hunger was hurting now. It was a churning, a fire, a storm. A nightmare. A wicked hand within him clawing at his stomach then reaching up to every inch of his insides, begging for him to eat. There were plants growing on the top of the bars. If he wanted to he could reach up and grab one and fulfil his hunger. He didn’t. That wasn’t the plan.

Were they ever going to feed him? He wasn’t going to eat the food they gave him, but he wanted to see human movement. He wanted to see the face of a person, even if was the face of a person willingly poisoning him.

Logan knew he was dying. It was pretty obvious. If it wasn’t from the starvation, it was from the head injury, or the infections, or sun poisoning, or an unknown disease spread by insect.

 _God,_ his heart ached to see _anyone_. And thinking about people made his mind wander to the people who he loved. He hadn’t thought in specifics about those people at all because it made him want to cry and thrash and beat his head against the ground and he knew that would only make things hurt worse, but not kill him any faster.

Thinking about them made him hear them and he didn’t want to hear them. He didn’t want to hear Keegan low voice in his ear. He didn’t want Keegan to tell him he loved him. Keegan wasn’t there. No one was there.

He knew that a person could survive up to two months without food if they had an adequate source of water. He was still alive so clearly it hadn’t been two months yet.

The plants were growing right up there over the bars. It would be so easy to snag a stem. He imagined himself doing it. The tangy, sour taste of plant entered his mind. It didn’t matter how it tasted, he just wanted anything to fill his stomach. Eating dirt didn’t sound so bad.

But that wasn’t the plan. He couldn’t eat. That was the point.

He wondered how many other people before him had survived so long. Probably all of them. He wasn’t special.

He tried to make a sound into the abyss but his vocal cords didn’t even humour him slightly. A pathetic rasp exited his throat. He wanted to laugh at how pitiful he was.

He blacked out.

And then he woke up. Had it gotten darker than before? He couldn’t remember before. If it _had_ , that meant it was approaching night.

Everything hurt.

He missed Keegan.

“Logan?”

Keegan was speaking to him again. He could hear it in his left ear. Turning to his left, he saw nothing. No one was there. It was silent.

It rained. It felt nice on his skin.

Was that a chirping bird? It was a pleasant sound.

And then he heard something explode. Logan couldn’t tell if his brain was finally shutting down. He couldn’t tell if it was death. It was so loud. Louder than anything Logan had heard in an eternity. Was it real? Likely not. He could hear the sound of a helicopter above him. This made sense. It was like the phrase “Seeing your life flash before your eyes.” Logan closed his eyes, and the sounds he could hear perfectly matched the visuals he could see.

A helicopter hung over a city scape. Logan was in combat, shooting a SMG at someone. The sound of gunshot was so tangible. And he could hear voices. He saw people beside him and in front of him. People were shouting. People would always shout on the battlefield. Shout to your fellow soldiers, shout in pain, shout to signal to the exfil if you didn’t have smoke, shout in celebration, shout in frustration… then he heard Keegan’s voice. It was definitely Keegan’s voice. So deep and hardened, filled with experience, hardship and knowledge. He couldn’t be sure in what he was saying, but he was pretty sure he had called Logan’s name.

“Logan.” He must have said. “Cover me.” He might have said. It could have been anything. “Logan!” he seemed to say again. Why was he calling his name? He already had his attention. “Logan! Logan!”

What did he want? He didn’t understand. Why could he hear the sound of a blowtorch? He knew that sound well. He had needed to cut through locks and grates many times. The sound of metal screeching was unforgettable. But he couldn’t see anything one in the city near him using one.

“Logan!”

What was happening? Why wasn’t he dead yet? This was a long dream. Keegan still was calling to him and he wanted to scream out to him and tell him that he could hear him.

And he did. He screamed and screamed.

“Logan. I’ve got you.” Nothing was making sense.

And he could feel arms around him. He could tell it was in real life because the contact burned his skin. A gut reaction led him to kick and shove the contact away. It hurt so bad.

“Open your eyes, Logan.”

He obeyed, and he was Keegan’s arms. He didn’t mind the pain anymore, he let it burn. He could only cry in a conglomeration of sickness, pain, hunger, confusion and _love._ Real or not, he was able to see Keegan’s face before he died. It was glorious and gratifying. He was about to die, he knew it. He could feel his vision fading.

The first thing he could see was a digital clock that read 5:30 am. It was a plastic plate hanging on a white wall. The wall was so clean. There was no dirt or specs of dust on it. A perfectly monotone slate. It was so magnificent and Logan couldn’t take his eyes of it. He had never seen something so clean in his life. He couldn’t turn his head, but he didn’t want to. Why would he? The void was right in front of his eyeline, reflecting rays of light into his retinas.

There was a quiet bumble of people’s voices.

He woke up again before he knew he had fallen asleep, this time seeing the ceiling. The ceiling was made up of panels. They were perfectly lined, none out of place. There was light above him, but it was turned off. Daylight was emitting from elsewhere.

He faded.

He woke. There were voices. They were close and they were hushed but speaking very fast. He tried to turn his head and succeeded, his head flopping lazily to the side. With his cheek pressed to the bed, he could see that they weren’t people, but blurry outlines of people. He could differentiate between the colours. He could hear the difference between the cadences. The people suddenly spoke even faster. Someone came close. Someone was touching him.

He faded.

He woke up more alert this time. After the return of his consciousness, he immediately jerked up, looking around frantically, wincing at the sting of the movement and falling back down again. It was a room. Dim. Plaster walls. Clean. Medical equipment. Had to be hospital. He was in a hospital bed.

_He was in a hospital bed._

Logan wanted to cry. There was no way.

His body was covered with a sheet, but from what he could see his arms, legs, feet and hands were covered in bandages. So was his head, he could feel. His upper arms looked so thin, he didn’t even want to see the past the sheets. A dull weakness and pain could be felt everywhere on his skin. He came to the conclusion that he was on pain medication because he felt drowsy.

It all felt false. How the fuck had this happened?

What if he wasn’t safe still? Maybe this was still the working of the Federation. They were fixing him up so that they could throw him back into the pit. He looked around for clues as to his location.

Firstly, there was a window to an outside. That meant he wasn’t in a bunker. It was sunny outside. Logan hated sun.

There was air conditioning running.

The room was so clean and nice and pleasant. The bed was so comfortable and warm but not hot. He could just sink into the mattress and pillow. It had been a millennia since he had felt comfort. If this was the Federation, they were definitely giving him luxury. It was highly unlikely it was them, but he still needed to be careful.

A woman entered the room through a curtain. She was wearing blue scrubs. Logan recognised she was a nurse. He eyed her suspiciously and held his arms out in front of him to protect himself, but he could barely separate them from the surface of the bed.

“Where am I?” he asked forcefully, but his voice came out like a croak. He let out a few violent coughs. He had done a number on himself by screaming at the top of his lungs.

The women politely smiled.

“Good morning, Mr Walker. You’re in the New York City Med Centre hospital. You were admitted into emergency care. My name is Anna, and I’m your primary caretaker. I’d love to answer any questions you have while I fix your IV. Would you like some water?” She continued to beam warmly and take a small step towards. Logan narrowed his eyes at her and unconsciously jerked back. She approached and Logan flinched away.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe.” She said like she had rehearsed it. She approached again, and Logan reluctantly allowed her to tamper with his IV.

“Could you tell me what happened?” he rasped,” I mean- _all_ of it. I just can’t put anything together.”

“That’s understandable,” she nodded. “You’ve clearly experienced quite a lot of trauma, and you’re also on medication to help your pain.” Logan looked at his body. He couldn’t see the skin but he could assume it looked disgusting with blisters and burns.

He felt like he had walked through a forest fire and then fallen into an ocean. It felt so wrong. How had he gotten out of there? Alive or dead, he should still be in the pit. He should wake up to see himself covered in dirt and mud and piss. A water droplet would fall on him at any moment and wake him up from this reverie. He waited to hear more from the nurse and she continued.

“I can’t tell you much as I wasn’t informed of the details. Don’t worry, you’ll be briefed soon enough. Though I’d like to know what _you_ remember first.”

“You said _you_ were going to do that.” He protested.

“Of course, of course! Eventually I will. But we have a lot of psychological evaluating to do. You’ve experienced severe head trauma. We need to test for things like memory loss.”

Logan froze. Did she want him to recount it _all_ to her? Did she want him to go through those memories again? That sounded like fucking garbage. He shook his head fervently.

“Fuck no. I’m not doing that. Not right now.” He roared. He knew it was rude. He didn’t give a shit.

The nurse nodded understandably. “I understand that, sir. It can be hard to remember bad memories. Unfortunately I’ve been asked to refrain from telling you unless you can recall it yourself.”

“I was in a fucking pit. They put me in there. It was hot and dirty and it smelled like shit. They gave me nothing to eat but poison so I didn’t eat anything and then I woke up here. Maybe ten days, I’m sure. At least.”

“I don’t have much information for you right now, but I can tell you that you were in there for much more than ten days.”

Logan didn’t respond. He did suppose ten days was a bit short of an estimate, but he could only remember around ten days of being in there. He had been counting the sunrises and sunsets and as far as his brain could remember, the number was ten. Though, it was strange he was so thin from only ten days.

“I don’t want to alarm you right now,” The nurse began, “but you have a large number of serious injuries, including infected wounds. We have antibiotics coming from your IV so your body is busy fighting them off. You were exposed to south American native wildlife and received many bites from various insects but we’re fairly certain that you don’t have any of insect borne diseases. You are majorly sunburnt on most parts of your body. Your arm was broken and healed unnaturally. You’ve suffered head trauma so we need to check for any sort of brain damage.”

“Can you tell me how I got here at least? I don’t remember that so you can tell me that at least.”

“I don’t have details but you were found and rescued.”

“Bullshit. How did they find me?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t have any details.” She spoke. He groaned in frustration. “You have a visitor who said they would come today. He might have something to tell you.” She moved to leave. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to press the button over there. One of us will right with you.”

“Visitor? Do you know who?”

“I don’t have the name, but I’ll get back to you.” She left the room.

That visitor could be the Federation, revealing that this was all a front. The nurse was making sure that he didn’t know too much so that she could report back to base that he was still fucked up. They would try make Logan feel comfortable so that he wouldn’t be on edge. The visitor would come in and take him away. First they would disable him again, then they would pick him up and restrain him in the back of car. He’d wake up in the pit again.

So he needed to be ready for that. There wasn’t too much around him he could use but there had some to be something weapon like. There was a fire extinguisher on the wall but it was way too far and far too heavy. There was a set of drawers on wheels nearby. It looked like it could have medical supplies in there. If he could reach it, he may be able to find a tool to protect himself.

It was adjacent to his bed, but not pressed up against it. He would need to reach over and pull it towards himself. He tried to lift his body with his arms, immediately failing due to his pain and weakness. All his skin felt tight and raw. He would have to shimmy.

First, he rolled over onto his stomach. He did his best to move his body to the very edge of the bed. Then, he rotated so that his front torso was hanging off the bed. He would be able to reach the drawers if he could just lift his arm.

He took a breath and prepared himself. He raised his arm quickly, trying to muffle the sounds he wanted to make at the excruciating pain. The burnt skin stretched and stung. If could just hang on for another second…

In a quick motion, his fingertips reached the side of the drawers and he pulled it in. His hand gave out and swung down off the side of the bed, and the drawers came barrelling towards him, bumping into his bicep. He grunted and lay there for a bit, waiting for the stinging to subside.

Looking up, he congratulated himself on the effort and pushed his body up so that he was sitting up against the headboard. Carefully and tenderly, he opened the first drawer. There were quite a few things in there. A box of tissues, a packet of rubber gloves, some tape, pens and paper. The pen was something, but not the best. It wouldn’t do enough damage to incapacitate the enemy. The good stuff would probably be less accessible to him, meaning the bottom drawer.

The bottom drawer had boxes of different medications and substances in cardboard boxes. Next to a roll of bandages, was a packaged pair of scissors. Logan fished it out. The scissors were sitting on a sheet of cardboard, and enclosed in plastic, the usual type of packaging for scissors; one of those packages that were hell to open even if you have perfectly good fingers. Logan didn’t have those at hand, so he went to pull it open with his teeth.

He wasn’t expecting the pain. Lighting bolts shot from his mouth and gums and he dropped the scissor packet on his lap. He grunted and covered his mouth. For a couple seconds he stayed there frozen. He teeth must have been rotting.

The teeth idea wasn’t so good. He need a plan B.

He put the scissors back in the drawer, closed it and shoved the whole thing back into its original position. He pressed the bottom on the bedside table. A couple moments later, another nurse entered the room. It was a different person, but it didn’t matter.

“Sorry to bother you, but there’s a tag at the bag of my gown that’s bothering me. Could you please cut it for me?”

The nurse nodded and went to the set of the drawers. He rummaged in the first one, then the second one, then the last. He found the scissors and began to tear at the package and smiled good naturedly at Logan as he struggled to get it open. Logan smiled back.

Eventually, he succeeded and the scissors were free. Helping Logan to lean forward, he snipped a piece of fabric at the back of his hospital gown and helped him lean back onto to the bed. Logan thanked him gratefully.

“No problem, sir.” The nurse said, and placed the scissors back into the bottom drawer. Then he left the room, leaving logan in isolation. Logan thanked his lucky star.

As before, he pushed himself to the side of the bed and reached over to the drawers, pulling it towards himself. He reached for the bottom drawer and picked out the scissors, and pushed the drawers back. Perfect. All he needed to do was wait.

The minutes ticked by slowly, but Logan was just glad to be able to have a reference of time. It should have been boring. Even more boring than the pit. It wasn’t though, somehow. It was probably due to the fact that the pit wasn’t boring, it was terrifying and hopeless. It was isolating and insanity inducing. The hospital room was just boring.

An hour went by unbelievably fast. And another one. There were routine check-ups but Logan hid the scissors under the covers and nothing of interest happened, so Logan calculated his risks and decided to rest. It would do him good to preserve energy. He closed his eyes.

And then a person walked in. Logan was happy to pretend that he was asleep to avoid talking to another nurse.

Hang on. Was it another nurse? They weren’t doing anything. They seemed to be just standing in the middle of the room, waiting. What the hell?

Logan immediately sat up, ready to pull out his scissors.

But it was Hesh. So unmistakably his brother. Standing there in shock. In disbelief. In tears.

He stood there, still, as if under a spotlight.

He stood there like the lead actor on a stage, ready to sing the big number.

And Logan was the deuteragonist of the story. He was crying too. None of this was real, was it?

“David?” Logan whispered, unsure if speaking any louder would create a ripple in the dream, ending it.

Hesh put a hand to his mouth and sobbed hard. In two massive strides, he was on his knees, kneeling beside the bed. In a gentle, careful motion, he placed his hands on Logan’s bandaged on laying weakly on the mattress.

“Logan,” He wailed, crying into the sheets, “I’ve waited so long.” Logan lifted his hand up slowly and placed it on Hesh’s head, testing to see if he was a solid figure. His brother felt real. He felt warm and he felt like safety. He didn’t want to let go.

“Are you real?” He forced out of his dry throat. Hesh paused his crying for a moment to process the question.

“Am I real?” He parroted, “Of course I’m real, Logan. I’m real and you’re _safe_.” He shook his head and said in despair “What did they _do_ to you?”

“They kept me in there, and they starved me and they let me-“

“No! Stop. Now’s not the time to make you relive that.” Hesh stood up and pulled up a chair, looking over his brother in despair and pity. “I should have stopped him. They shouldn’t have gotten to you.” He muttered bitterly. Logan didn’t have the energy to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. That there was nothing David could have done to prevent what happened.

“Where are the others? I haven’t seen them in… I don’t know. It feels like eternity.”

Hesh’s eyes glossed over at the thought of the time period Logan had spent isolated in the Amazon rainforest. “They’re fine, Logan. They miss you. They couldn’t come today but they really want to see you. To talk to you, and see that you’re alright.”

“And Keegan?”

An understanding facial expression bloomed on Hesh’s face. Logan wasn’t confident what Hesh was so knowing of but he could guess.

“Of course.” He said suddenly enthusiastically. “He’s doing great. He really misses you.”

Logan closed his eyes and saw Keegan. He saw his dark, focused eyes. His calculating, reserved disposition and his ability to make decisions; to think on the spot. They way he could hold himself so intimidating by being so sparse with his words, yet articulate himself perfectly well. The way that he softened up around Logan. The way he was so gentle when he was comfortable. Logan had been almost certain he would die before he got to tell him that he-

“-Logan? Are you okay?” Hesh was panicking slightly, leaning forward on the chair. Logan opened his eyes quickly to reassure his brother of his safety.

“Sorry.” He said quickly. “I was just thinking.”

“About _him_?” Hesh asked earnestly, without any hint of reservation or humour in his voice. Logan looked away sheepishly. Hesh took that as a yes. “He loves you, you know. In all these months- “

“ _-months?!_ ”

Hesh looked taken aback.

“You didn’t know?”

“How could I? I didn’t have a fucking clock, did I?”

Hesh sighed. “We had intel from a guy from the Federation. He was our eyes. A double agent sort of thing. He said you were in in there for two months.”

“ _Fuck!_ Are you kidding me? I swear… it was a couple days, max! I counted…”

“What they did was fucked up. You were going crazy in there and you had no way of tracking time. You just got confused. Disoriented.”

“There’s no way. Your guy is wrong. Ask him again, but tell him the question’s from _me._ ”

“Just look at yourself!” He gestured to Logan’s body. “You’re fucking skin and bone. Yeah, you’d lose a little weight from a week, but not how much you lost. Besides, the guy’s dead now. Not gonna get much out of him.”

“Time’s supposed to feel slower when you’re bored, not faster. It should have felt longer.”

“Bored? Dude. ‘Bored’ is the word your using? I know you’re trying to play it down, but they fucking _hurt_ you. They were going to destroy you. The fact that you’re so intact is a miracle.”

“…Take these scissors from me.”

“…the fuck?”

Logan used his head to gesture down at his lap.

“Under my sheet. I was hiding scissors.”

David wordlessly lifted the sheets up and found the cutting appliance. He picked it up by the handle and examined it.

“Wow. Christ, man. You were that paranoid, huh? I can’t fucking believe they did that to you. I swear to god…” Hesh closed his eyes for a quick moment to regain his composure. “We’re going to fix you up. Good as fucking new, I swear.”

Logan wanted to believe that. He tried to believe it. If he had somehow survived what he had survived, he could recover from it. And if he could recover from it, he could forget about it.

Two weeks later, Keegan still hadn’t shown up and Logan carried on with his recovery. It felt like a small blessing, to be allowed to rehabilitate before seeing him again. He didn’t want Keegan to see him bedridden and ill.

Hesh showed up regularly for company and support. He was there from his physiotherapy to his surgeries, for all the painful nights of healing. Logan appreciated it. His brother was reliable. A brick wall to fall on; sometimes literally when Logan needed help walking.

But he needed more than physical aid. No matter how much help he was given to recover his body, the paranoia, the fatigue, the visions would not stop.

Not to mention the memory loss. Logan didn’t want to tell anyone, but he was having a hard time remembering things. Not major things, but things that people had told him, events of the day before, what time of day it was... He was finding it easy to lose track of time, to suddenly look at the clock and be surprised at how long he had been doing the same task.

He was hesitant to call it memory loss because it was simpler to chalk it up to confusion. He had just been through two months of starvation, isolation and disease, it was no surprise he wasn’t at his full mental capacity.

It was when he forgot the name of his brother, that he realized something worse was happening. It was only for a minute or two, but it was the scariest minute. He shouldn’t have forgotten it. He had known it all his life. Even if he remembered it in the end, there shouldn’t have been any time at all.

And when it came to psychological evaluation, the doctor noticed.

Anterograde amnesia. The inability to create new memories. For Logan, it wasn’t so much as an inability, but a struggle.

He had a mild form of it, meaning that he could still create new memories, but many things would get lost in his mind. There would be holes of information missing; breaches in the hull. He was a ship staying afloat by patching gaps with duct tape, but there was only one crewmate on water duty.

Logan hated it. No matter how hard he tried to put every second of his day to memory, he would struggle to recall most of it by night. It became a ritual every night to remember what had happened that day, and it was getting frustrating.

And then one day, when he was sitting in the courtyard in front of the hospital, he saw Keegan.

He saw him, but Keegan hadn’t seen him. He was sure it was him. It was the shape of him. The stiff silhouette of a person so unsure of himself but afraid to show it. He wanted to run up to him as far as he could before his legs gave out. To pull him into an embrace and never let go. Gaze at his face and put every tiny detail, every crease, every scar to memory. To fight against every neuron in his brain to remember every little thing about him. To run his fingers over his skin and through his hair just to know that he was there, that he was alive, that he was tangible.

But Logan was scared and didn’t know why. Keegan walked further and further away, and Logan could only stand paralysed.

And he stood still even when Keegan turned his head. Even when he saw Logan. Even in the sudden moment of recognition. Of emotion. Even when he stepped forward. Stepped closer.

And Logan realized that while his body stood frozen, he was crying.

Keegan was ten feet away and Logan was as still as a wooden board and sobbing silently. He wanted to hug him, to reach out to him or even just say hello, but he couldn’t.

So Keegan walked the gap and put his strong arms around Logan.

“Kid.”

That was when everything in his body relaxed. Like a reservoir flooding the dam wall, his emotions came crashing down.

“I missed you.” He cried into Keegan’s navy blue jacket, curling his hands into the man’s back, holding bunches of fabric. Keegan held him tighter.

“I missed you too.” He responded softly.

For a few moments, the two stood silently. Logan didn’t want to ever leave the moment. He wished time would stop flowing forward, so he could remain in the bliss of Keegan’s embrace endlessly.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you when I was in there. It felt like you were there with me.”

Keegan ran a hand through Logan’s hair which had been shaved, and now was short and patchy.

“I’m with you now.”

“Don’t leave.”

“I won’t.”

He didn’t. He stayed for Logan’s revisions surgery for his arm. He stayed for his post-surgery recovery. He stayed, even when Logan wasn’t awake to appreciate it. And when Logan awoke, Keegan was laying beside him.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you at the beginning.” Keegan whispered, after the two realised that the other was awake. “I had work to do.” Logan shook his head as much as he could laying sideways.

“No. It’s not your fault. Besides, I had Hesh.” He murmured back.

Keegan smiled. “And how did he treat you? Good, I hope.”

“Yeah, good. He’s a brick wall; in reliability and in conversation.” Logan answered. Keegan snickered. Logan smiled lightly, but turned to a thoughtful expression. “Can I ask you something?” Keegan answered with an attentive look so he continued. “There’s a lot I don’t remember from what happened. Not sure if you knew but-“

“Yeah, I talked to your nurse. Memory loss.”

“Right. So there a lot of gaps in my recollection of what happened. I also had freaky hallucinations and shit, right? So it’s hard for me to piece a clear picture of what happened. But I have a memory.” Logan paused, and Keegan waited patiently for him to collect his thoughts. “…well, it was near the end, I think. I heard a loud noise. A gunshot or an explosion or something. There were a lot of noises. A chopper I think. And then I heard you. You were saying my name. And then I remember you picking me up. That’s what I remember. Did that happen? Did you save me?”

Keegan reached a tender hand up to Logan’s hair to smooth it out. “I’m glad you remember.”

“But… how?”

“We got your location from our double agent. It took a while to organise our attack plan, but we managed to infiltrate their defences and get you out. Our guy got the bullet though. I’m sorry if you felt like we abandoned you… we were working our fastest. We would never leave you.”

“It’s okay. I don’t really remember most of it. It comes back in bursts, especially at night. But in the day I can hardly place a finger on being there.”

“You’re strong. That’s why they couldn’t break you.”

Logan snorted. “Strong? Are you even seeing me?”

“Yup. Handsome as ever.”

“You charmer.” Logan laughed. “Don’t lie. I look like a fucked up skeleton. You didn’t get to see me as a mummy when I was wrapped up in bandages.”

“Sounds like a good look for you. You should try it out more often.”

“Ha ha.” Logan yawned.

“Sleep.” Keegan either suggested or commanded.

“Don’t want to.”

He reached for Keegan’s hand and held it lightly with his delicate fingers. Keegan softly ran his fingertips over Logan’s knuckles, faintly stroking his skin. Eventually, Logan’s arm began to droop.

“Sleep.” Keegan said again.

He received no response. Logan had already drifted off.

“Do you think I could come back to the Ghosts when I recover?” Logan asked, as he sipped a coffee and placed it back on the cafeteria table. Hesh, beside him, who was cupping his hands around a half empty disposable cup looked drearily into the steaming beverage. Keegan opposite him didn’t emote, but Logan could sense the elephant in the room he had just bumped into.

“It depends.” Hesh started to answer, before lifting his cup to his mouth to take another sip. “We want you back, but we don’t want to put you in danger.” Logan nodded but persisted.

“But let’s say I recover fully. Like I’m totally healed in every way. Can I?”

Hesh nodded. “Of course you can. But you know your memory problems can’t be-“

“I know. I know.”

“If you forget something vital you could accidentally hurt yourself or someone else.”

“Yeah. I get it.” Logan sighed and drank the last of his coffee. “I need more of this.”

“Probably not a good idea.” Keegan butted in. “Too much caffeine isn’t good for you.”

Logan mumbled. “Yeah yeah.” He placed his head on his hand. “What good am I if I can’t remember shit?”

Hesh looked at him quizzically. “You can still remember things, can’t you? Just not all the time.”

“Yes, but does it matter? I won’t be able to go back into the military.”

“Don’t say that!” Hesh exclaimed. “It’s too early to decide. There are plenty of jobs out there fit for you.”

“Right. Like a janitor.” He replied sarcastically. Keegan snorted, so Logan flashed him a small grin. Him being there was really lifting his mood. Hesh smirked at the interaction.

“Finish my coffee.” Hesh offered. “I need to use the bathroom.” He got up and left. Logan greedily took the cup and gulped down the last of it.

“Sneaky.” Keegan commented.

“I take what I can get.” Logan shrugged. “So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“About me going back to the Ghosts.”

“I think you need to take care of yourself and not think that far into the future.” He responded gruffly. “Either way, it’s not up to me to decide.”

“Yeah, well, if it _was_ , then you’d probably not let me because you worry about me.”

“You know me too well.”

“Where did Hesh go again?”

“Bathroom.”

“Thanks.” Logan began to pick at the Styrofoam of the cup, creating a pile of little bits of foam. The burns on his fingers were healing just like the rest of his body. The skin was tight which restricted movement a little, but there was no pain. His hands were weak just from the lack of use and nutrition, but he had slowly been gaining strength over the weeks. His arms and legs were scarred immensely, and still had signs of burning. The skin was course like leather and covered in miniature wounds that were slowly healing over. It would all mend in time. He wished he would mend completely.

“I’m going to join the Ghosts again, no matter what. I’m going to fucking do it if it kills me.”

Keegan smiled. “I’ve always admired your determination. Not everyone keeps that.”

“What else can I have? Determination doesn’t get you anywhere but a place of disappointment.”

“Determination stops you from giving up. Giving up stops more people than actually ability.”

“So do you think I could actually come back?”

“I don’t know.” He admitted. “It depends on how bad you want it.”

Logan was finally out of in-patient care. It had been a rocky journey to physical recovery, but he made it. Wounds mended, bones healed, he was fit and primed. Mostly. He had lost most of his strength due to the lack of exercise; all that muscle mass he had built up over the years gone down the drain. It was daunting to think about jumping right back into working out to build all of that progress back up again. It would be so disheartening to not be able to match his ability from before. He would have to work his way up to where he was, and that was frustrating.

That was what Logan thought was his only obstacle. If he could do all that, he could work his way back up to where he started. His memory was a little bit of a problem, but he could give himself strategies for remembering. He would find ways.

He had flown to Colorado to the safehouse where the remnants of the Ghosts were residing. There weren’t many now: only himself, Hesh, Logan, Keegan, Kick and Neptune. Merrick had taken leadership of them since the death of his dad. Logan was happy with this outcome. Not with the death of his father, obviously, but with Merrick taking control. Merrick was level-headed and forceful. He could be aggressive, but was never reckless. Hesh had been a little pissy when they replaced their leader so soon.

“He _just_ died. Why are we replacing right now?” He protested.

And Merrick replied with “We need leadership. We can’t sit around all day waiting for the dust to settle.”

Hesh had let his head drop and refrained from arguing.

Logan was feeling nostalgic, if that was the right word. He’d missed being around the Ghosts incredibly. So much so that every little piece of familiarity made his heart fill with emotion. It was the small things, like Hesh making fun of Keegan, or Merrick insulting Hesh. It was Keegan calling him ‘kid,’ or Riley’s slobber on his hands.

“Hesh. I swear to fuck. If you leave another plate in the sink-“ Merrick yelled across the room.

“Alright, alright, dude.” Hesh waved him off cheekily. “Old man…” He added under his breath. Logan laughed. Merrick didn’t look impressed. Keegan was reading a book on a chair nearby. Logan studied his concentrated expression for a moment before quickly turning away before someone noticed.

“What day is it again?” He asked to the room.

Hesh and Merrick both responded in unison. “Tuesday.”

“Thanks.”

“Why?” Hesh asked.

“No reason. I just forgot.”

“Right.”

Keegan furrowed his brow subtly. Logan guessed it was related to the book he was reading.

“Keegan.” Merrick called to him, “Stop being a loser and talk to us.” Keegan put the book down and glared at him.

“By not talking to you I’m detaching myself from your idiocy. Maybe _you_ should read a book.”

“What a burn.” Logan commented, and Merrick pretended to be wounded. Hesh stood up and turned to Merrick.

“Should we get ready?” he asked him, and Merrick nodded and lifted himself off the seat. Keegan nodded to them in approval, and turned to his book. Logan sat there confused. He didn’t know that Hesh and Merrick were going out. He looked puzzledly at the three of them.

“Wait, wait, wait. Where are you going?”

Merrick sighed in response. “Hesh and I are doing recon, remember? We told you like five hours ago.”

“Fuck! Sorry. I forgot, I guess.” Logan winced in embarrassment. Keegan perked up.

“Lay off him. He can’t help it.”

Merrick nodded his head bitterly. “I know.” He turned to Hesh. “C’mon.”

When Logan and Keegan were alone, Logan drew his knees up to his chest on the sofa and exhaled softly. The room was silent, apart from the rusting of Keegan’s pages against his calloused fingers. Suddenly, Logan felt a strange chill travelling down his spine. He looked around the silent safehouse. It was _too_ quiet. What if someone was outside the door? Had Hesh and Merrick locked it on the way out? What about the windows. Someone could be lurking behind the couch that very moment.

Keegan stopped reading again and looked up.

“I feel like you have something to say.”

Logan shook his head abashedly. “No.”

Keegan sighed and looked down at his book.

“Actually, yeah.” Logan began. “Can I sit next to you?”

Keegan stared incredulously. “Where, exactly?” looking down at his chair which was very much fit for one person.

“Just on the floor.” Logan muttered sheepishly.

“Go for it.”

So Logan stood up and sat on the floor near Keegan, with his head leaning on his leg. Keegan reached down to ruffle his hair which had grown significantly. He then went back to reading silently. Logan closed his eyes and listened to the quiet sounds of the man’s breath. After a couple minutes, Keegan closed his book with a quiet slam.

“Logan?”

“Hm?”

Keegan stood up, inadvertently pushing Logan off him.

“We can sit on the sofa. No point making you sit on the floor.” He offered his hand to Logan, who took it and pulled himself up. Keegan went and sat on the sofa with his feet on the ground. Logan sat beside him cross legged. His knee was basically pressed up on top of Keegan’s lap, but neither of them minded the contact. His head flopped down onto Keegan’s shoulder.

“Thanks.” He said quietly into Keegan’s ear.

“No problem.” He replied. Logan could hear the words reverberate through Keegan’s throat.

“Hey, Keegan? You know, I wouldn’t really care that much if I couldn’t go back into the field.”

“You’re lying.”

“It’s true! I wouldn’t care, as long as I get to be around you.”

“That’s sweet of you.” Keegan said, as he took Logan’s hand in his own and squeezed it. “But I hope you haven’t given up.”

Logan didn’t respond for a moment. Keegan waited.

“It’s getting harder to keep myself in line. I forget things more and more. And I still can’t shake this paranoia. It just comes back whenever it gets too quiet.” He muttered. “I had it just a couple minutes ago.” He added.

Keegan nodded understandably.

“We should get you a therapist.”

“A therapist? Like, do I just talk to them?”

“They give you strategies to cope.”

“Huh. Well, either way, _you_ help me cope.”

Keegan took his hand off Logan’s, and placed it on Logan’s cheek, holding his face gently.

“You help _me_ cope.”

“With what?”

“Loneliness.” With that, Keegan drew his face closer to Logan.

Logan leant back.

“Wait.” He said, panicking. “Stop.”

Keegan immediately leant back.

“Shit. Fuck! I’m so sorry.”

“Wait, Keegan, listen to me-“

“I shouldn’t have assumed…”

“Listen to me!” He exclaimed. “I fucking love you! I’ve loved you forever, Keegan. More than I can even fucking express.” He reached for Keegan’s hand again. “Its… It’s hard for me to explain. I want to be around you all the time. And I want to talk to you and hold your hand. But I don’t want to - you know - kiss you. I don’t want to kiss _anyone_. I don’t like doing that, no matter who they are. Or sex or anything like that. But I _love_ you. Do you understand?”

Keegan nodded slowly and thoughtfully, stunned.

“Logan, I- I love you too. And all that time we were apart, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. How much I wanted to hold you. And we don’t have to do _any_ of that stuff. No kissing. No sex. Fuck that. I love you for _you_. And I want to help you with everything you’re struggling with.”

Logan pressed his face into Keegan’s chest.

“Hopefully I don’t forget about this tomorrow,” he laughed. Keegan snorted and carded through Logan’s soft hair, lovingly.


End file.
